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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27554566">Through the Looking Glass</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwillsithereandtrytocontribute/pseuds/iwillsithereandtrytocontribute'>iwillsithereandtrytocontribute</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Tales To Be Told - The Mechanisms (Album), The Mechanisms (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(Johnny has a thing with skin for some reason), And if another Mech wrote that bit you're just fueling that part of Johnny's horror, Blood, Death, Gen, Minor Body Horror, Technically main character death but it's just a snippet, War</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 18:35:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>643</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27554566</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwillsithereandtrytocontribute/pseuds/iwillsithereandtrytocontribute</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>What happened to Alice after that, no one really knows. Some say she was rescued, others that she lost her own head. And some say she's on that strange planet to this day.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Through the Looking Glass</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I've decided my Mechs fics will just be every sad headcanon I have about the minor characters of their albums and songs.<br/>The Queen is the Rose Red (the Queen of Hearts) and the singing is Majors Hatter and Hare.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>She marched forward, in time with the soldiers beside her. They were fighting for the Crown. Or was it the Rebels? For the Queen, she decided. The person beside her fell suddenly, the scorching smell of burning flesh spoke to a shot from… the other side. She shot her gun in the general direction of the blast. She heard the sounds of the other soldiers doing the same. There was one cry, then another, and the thump of bodies hitting the ground accompanied by the clatter of guns. A couple people </span>
  <em>
    <span>machines?</span>
  </em>
  <span> swarmed forward, looting the bodies with practiced precision.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She stepped forward to take the uniform one of them offered her. It was stained black with decades of blood just like the ones her compatriots wore. There were a few newer uniforms, like the one she wore, but none could be bothered to remember why that was. She folded it carefully and expertly with one arm, keeping her gun ready. She fingered the scorch marks and bullet holes that littered the tattered cloth that was more patches and holes than the original uniform. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A sudden gunshot broke her out of her reverie. The uniform was stowed to outfit new soldiers when her regiment returned to their base camp. On and on they marched. This had been her life for </span>
  <em>
    <span>how long had it been now? Days? Weeks? Months? </span>
  </em>
  <b>
    <em>Years?</em>
  </b>
  <span> It doesn’t matter. The war matters. It’s the only thing that matters. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Something moves in the distance. She shoots without thinking. She misses, but that doesn’t bother her. They will win the war in the end. For the Queen. In the distance she hears something like singing. It sounds familiar somehow though she dares not listen closer. As her mind wanders so do her feet and Queen forbid she begin to stray from the cause.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She does not know for what she fights. She thinks she must have at some point, the soldiers near her tell her when she asks that she came after them in a uniform of white. The war quickly rid her of that distinction from the rest. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>In her ear the orders come, fast and furious, and often contradictory. She cannot count the number of times she has taken this hill or that, sometimes from people she vaguely remembers fighting alongside. Even her fallible mind recognizes this pattern and she never elects to stay behind and hold the victory. She does not make friends. She tried once and they </span>
  <em>
    <span>what happened to them?</span>
  </em>
  <span> She can’t recall.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Trumpets sound from far away as they make camp for whatever passes for night on this planet. The Queen is coming. She will be here tomorrow or the day after, pulled along, atop the groaning wooden platform. Jerking robots wearing decaying skin dragging her makeshift throne along, looking like grotesque copies of the reigning monarch of this war-ridden planet. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She knows enough now to stand in the midst of the crowd when the Queen comes. The unlucky few she chooses from her slowly diminishing army will end up dead or worse </span>
  <em>
    <span>used</span>
  </em>
  <span>. There are always a few new robots in need of skin.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She can’t remember the first time she witnessed this, but she remembers feeling </span>
  <em>
    <span>something</span>
  </em>
  <span>. She can’t quite recall. She can’t remember a frustrating amount of things when she really thinks about it (she tries not to). Her name, how she came here, even who the Queen is, they all escape her grasp. Once she was troubled by this absence, this dearth of knowledge. No longer. There is only one thing that matters now, though in the back of her mind is always the question.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The Queen does not choose her and she allows herself a brief moment of relief, before the march begins again. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And Alice fights. And wins. And loses. And dies.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And no one is ever the wiser.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Alice didn't deserve that, but this is the Mechanisms I didn't really have a choice. I might write some more of this, I really like the dreamlike style of that song and the narration was really really good in that one. Anyway! If you'd like to chat with me, my Tumblr is @iwillsithereandtrytocontribute :)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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